mercury

about mercury

mercury

about mercury

mercury's information

mercury's location

Mercury is the smallest planet in our Solar System, is located approximately 36 million miles from the Sun, making it the closest planet to the Sun. Mercury is roughly 50 million miles from Earth.

mercury's orbit

mercury has an orbit of about 88 earth days

The first ever pictures taken from within Mercury's Orbit

surface temperature

Surface Temperature: -173 to 427°C

is mercury a terrestrial or gas giant planet?

its a terrestrial planet!

mercury's atmosphere

Mercury has an atmosphere (sort of):Mercury has just 38 percent the gravity of Earth this is too little to hold on to what atmosphere it has which is blown away by solar winds. However while gases escape into space they are constantly being replenished at the same time by the same solar minds, radioactive decay and dust caused by micrometeorites

mercury is the smallest planet

Mercury is the smallest planet — it is only slightly larger than Earth's moon. Since it has no significant atmosphere to stop impacts, the planet is pockmarked with craters. About 4 billion years ago, an asteroid roughly 60 miles wide (100 kilometers) struck Mercury with an impact equal to 1 trillion 1-megaton bombs, creating a vast impact crater roughly 960 miles (1,550 km) wide. Known as the Caloris Basin, this crater could hold the entire state of Texas

information about mercury

It takes less than 88 Earth days for Mercury to orbit around the sun.

Because of a lack of an atmosphere, the temperature rises above 800°F while on the dark side it falls rapidly to -300°F.

Mercury is the most iron rich planet in the Solar System with an iron core like Earth.

Half of Mercury had never been seen

Until NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft made its first flyby of Mercury in 2008, NASA only had close up pictures of one half of Mercury’s surface. These first pictures were captured by NASA’s Mariner 10 spacecraft, which made a series of three flybys in 1974-75. During its closest flyby, Mariner came within 327 km of the surface of Mercury, and detected its magnetic field. Just after its final close approach, Mariner 10 ran out of fuel, and has probably been orbiting the region ever since.